If you were, you would know how to do fun things like what you see in this video (below the fold) using common kitchen objects. But no, you all opted to be business majors instead!

What’s happening here? When carbonated beverages and mentos candies are mixed together, they create a volcanic explosion. Can anyone write out the chemical equation for what is happening in this video?

Comments

Oh my god this is awesome. Mr. Skookumchick told me about this demo (he’s a chemistry prof) but it is so cool to see it in action. Such an elaborate setup! I want to go buy mentos right now. Note to those who wonder: apparently it works in regular Coke too, but then everything gets all sticky with the sugar. 😉

Can anyone write out the chemical equation for what is happening in this video?

Not really…it’s just a physical process. The rough surface of the Mentos provides plenty of nucleation sites for the CO2 to come out of solution, resulting in a geyser of carbon dioxide. Actually, just dumping sugar into a bottle of Coke will do the same thing.

Oh, but don’t use Altoids, even though it looks like they’d be nice and rough, and would work well. They’re not heavy enough, so they float and only make foam on the top of the Coke. The weight of the Mentos assures that they nucleate CO2 all the way through the bottle.